Chile Forum

Chile Forum in English for Gringos, Expatriates, and Travelers to Exchange Ideas and Information about Chile, South America. For more than a decade, the Chile Forum has been the center for expats to share their collective knowledge and experience about living in Chile. The Chile Forum is a free community service brought to you by the law office of Spencer Global.

First, I would like to thank everyone in advance for any information/advice that they can provide me. So I came to Chile almost two years ago to do postgraduate studies in one of the Universities (I applied for my student visa through extranjeria). After my first year my professor told me that he had received funding for the project that I was working on and was going to start paying me, and that in order to do so I would need a visa with permission to work. I applied for a change in visa type (student to temporary), using an offer of employment that my professor wrote for me, and that was approved end of last year. So currently I have a temporary visa for professionals with one or more contract and eventually would like to apply for permanent residency, however, there are a few issues. The first being that they still have not given me the contract to sign, so I am not being paid yet. Second, it is actually a convenio rather than a work contract, so there is no AFP or salud, which according to the extranjeria website are required along with a copy of the contract to apply for permanent residency. I own two rental properties in the states which generate monthly income for me, so was wondering is it possible to change my temporary visa type from professional to rentista? Do they allow applying for temporary visas more than once? Or could I just apply for permanent residency anyways and declare my rental properties as my income?

The short version, if you change type you have to start over counting your temp residency days. Depending on how far in you are, it might not make a diffrence. For example, work visa subject to contrsct is two years to qualify for perment residency. Perioduc income visa, one year.

I have a similar question. I am almost three months into my temp residency days and I am on a professional type visa. I thought that I can apply for permanent residency after 9 months without working. (showing that I paid AFP salud etc.)

But during the time at PDI and Registro Civil all the other foreigners told me I have to show at least 6 months of AFP with the professional type visa.
Are there different expectations depending what nationality you have? I am from Germany.

Now I am a little worried that I can not apply for permanent residency and maybe should change to the rentista visa?

The short version, if you change type you have to start over counting your temp residency days. Depending on how far in you are, it might not make a diffrence. For example, work visa subject to contrsct is two years to qualify for perment residency. Perioduc income visa, one year.

is it possible to change visa temporaria - technical professional to visa temporaria - rentista? or can i apply for permanent residency as a rentista with a temporary visa as a technical professional?

I have a related question. I have a temp visa for professionals and I have had it for 10 month and I want to apply fo permanent residency. However, in my last job I had a clause in my contract saying I would pay my AFP cotizaciones to my fund in my home country but neither I nor my employer ever did this... So I have 0 AFP cotizaciones to show.... How can I et around this? should I just extend my temp visa and start paying AFP with my current job?

I have a related question. I have a temp visa for professionals and I have had it for 10 month and I want to apply fo permanent residency. However, in my last job I had a clause in my contract saying I would pay my AFP cotizaciones to my fund in my home country but neither I nor my employer ever did this... So I have 0 AFP cotizaciones to show.... How can I et around this? should I just extend my temp visa and start paying AFP with my current job?

You could apply for permanent residency as a rentista or honorarios as long as you meet the requirements.

Extranjería requires you to submit your cotizaciones de AFP and Salud if you apply for permanent residency as dependent of employer.

Well, it only has something to do with it in so far as you are proving you and your employer complied with the employment laws. Lot of employers use to play games (some still do) with the employment taxes with dependent workers. For example, forcing employees to refund those payments to the employer; or, simply not paying it at all.